Kobakhidze: Georgia will not change course despite EU threats

Georgia will not deviate from its intended path despite the fact that the EU is blackmailing the citizens of the republic by promising to abolish the visa-free regime.

This was stated by Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze.

"As for the issue of the simplified visa regime, when they indirectly threaten the Georgian people, through the local agency, with the annulment of the visa-free regime, this speaks to the difficult situation in which, on the one hand, the European bureaucracy finds itself, and on the other, the local agency. A difficult situation," Kobakhidze told journalists. "They will achieve nothing by pressuring people and making threats, since Georgian society understands well the processes that are currently developing around us. Thus, blackmail will not work."

Earlier, the Georgian Foreign Ministry reported that on June 11, negotiations with the Georgian side on the topic of the EU visa-free regime and related problems will take place in Brussels. This will be the first such meeting in several years after relations between Tbilisi and Brussels deteriorated.

Relations between Georgia and the EU and the US began to deteriorate after the parliament of the republic adopted the law on foreign agents in May 2024. At the end of 2024, the legislative body of Georgia adopted a law banning LGBT propaganda. Because of these two laws, the West considered that Georgia had deviated from European values and was not following the path of integration into the EU. After this, the US and EU countries began to impose sanctions against representatives of the Georgian authorities.

Dissatisfaction in the West was also caused by the results of the parliamentary elections held on October 26, 2024. The ruling party "Georgian Dream - Democratic Georgia" won the elections, but the opposition and former President Salome Zourabichvili refuse to recognize the results of the vote.

Source: TASS